Sarek
---- Sarek of Vulcan spent most of his life in service of the Vulcan people as an ambassador and representative on the Federation Council. He was also well-known as the father of noted Starfleet officer (and fellow diplomat) Spock and the former husband of the Earth woman Amanda Grayson. Diplomatic life Sarek's accomplishments as an ambassador to the Federation included the Coridan admission debate of 2268 before the Federation Council, early treaties with the Klingon Empire (Treaty of Alliance), Alpha Cygnus IX, and his incredible effort to bring about a Federation-Legaran treaty, which was initiated in 2273. ( ; ) In an alternate timeline created by the death of Spock at an early age, Sarek had been Federation ambassador to 17 different planets between 2237 and 2269. ( ) Personal life Sarek was born in 2165, the son of Skon. ( ; ; ) Sarek's first child, Sybok, was born to a Vulcan princess to whom he was apparently bonded, but not married. Sybok lived with his mother until she died, at which point Sybok moved in with his father. ( ) Sometime later, while serving as Ambassador to Earth, Sarek wed his first wife, a Human female named Amanda Grayson, who gave birth to his second son, Spock, three years later. ( ; ) In later years, in describing his parents' relationship, Spock stated that his mother "considered herself a very fortunate Earth woman." ( ) suggested that Sarek and Grayson were married in 2230.}} Around 2250, Sarek broke off his relationship with Spock, when the latter decided to apply to Starfleet Academy instead of the Vulcan Science Academy. In the interim, Spock had likened Balok as being reminiscent to his father, even stating at one point early in the first contact between the First Federation and the Enterprise, that he regretted not having learned more about Balok. ( ) The two didn't speak again until the Coridan debate of 2268 (en route to the Babel Conference), when Sarek survived a series of heart attacks and surgery, only after a transfusion of rare T-negative blood from his son. ( ) Sarek and Spock remained on good terms as the Klingon détente bloomed in the 2280s. In 2285, however, Spock was left for dead on the Genesis Planet after sacrificing his life to save the . Sarek traveled to Earth and convinced Admiral James T. Kirk to retrieve his son's body, and pushed for a fal-tor-pan fusion of Spock's katra and body. ( ) A year after this, Sarek finally apologized to Spock for his original opposition to Spock's decision to join Starfleet, recognizing Spock's friends as people of good character. ( ) In 2293, Sarek suggested that Spock initiate negotiations for a proposed Federation-Klingon Alliance with Chancellor Gorkon, hoping to bring together the two life-long enemies after the destruction of the Klingon moon Praxis. That almost didn't happen, for Gorkon was assassinated. Captain Kirk and Dr. Leonard McCoy were arrested by the Klingons, having been framed for the chancellor's murder. Sarek was present at the Federation's attempts to stop their trial in Klingon territory, but had to concede that the Klingons are within their legal rights and the Federation cannot interfere in their due process. Kirk and McCoy, with Spock's assistance, eventually escaped from imprisonment on Rura Penthe, and they arrived at the Khitomer Conference in time to prevent the assassination of the Federation President. ( ) Afterwords, Sarek was involved with the Khitomer Accords, and further helped the Federation and the Klingon Empire establish their almost 100-year peaceful co-existence. ( ) Sometime after the Khitomer Conference, Spock left Starfleet and became an ambassador and representative of the Vulcans to the Federation. It is suspected he and Sarek were involved in few diplomatic missions. The two, however, split again over the Cardassian issue of the 24th century. By that time, Amanda had died, and Sarek had married another Human woman named Perrin. Sarek was present at his son's wedding before they stopped speaking to each other; it was at that event Sarek first met Jean-Luc Picard. ( ) In 2366, Sarek was diagnosed with Bendii Syndrome. At the time, he was negotiating a treaty with the Legarans. As his emotional control was incredibly weak, he mind-melded with Captain Picard at the suggestion of his wife Perrin. Sarek was then stable enough to conclude the negotiations, which had taken 93 years. ( ) In 2368, Sarek died at the age of 203 in his home on Vulcan. ( ) When meeting with Ambassador Spock on Romulus, Picard learned that Spock and his father had never mind-melded, and offered Spock the chance to share what Sarek had shared with him. The meld passed along Sarek's true feeling of love and admiration for his son that he never allowed himself to convey in life. ( ) After Julian Bashir told Elim Garak "before you can be loyal to another, you must be loyal to yourself" in 2370, the Cardassian attributed the quote to Sarek, but it was actually Bashir's own. ( ) The 24th century starship was presumably named in honor of Ambassador Sarek. ( ) Appendices Appearances * * * ''Star Trek'' films: ** ** ** ** * ** ** Background *Sarek was primarily played by Mark Lenard, except in The Final Frontier, where young Sarek was played by Jonathan Simpson. In the 2009 film , the character was played by Ben Cross. A deleted scene showed Spock's birth - as Spock's birth predated Nero's incursion, Cross was actually playing "this" Sarek in that scene. *A scene cut from the final script of "Journey to Babel" would have established that Sarek's father was himself a well-renowned Vulcan ambassador named Shariel. *In a deleted scene filmed for , it was revealed that Sarek was an accomplished musician. He placed first in an all-Vulcan music competition; second place was awarded to Spock. * The back story concerning Sybok and Sarek's marriage to a Vulcan princess in The Final Frontier has long been considered apocryphal by some sources, including Gene Roddenberry. "Sarek" states that Sarek's first wife was from Earth; clearly, this was intended to be a reference to Amanda and that Sarek was not married to a Vulcan princess. Admittedly, Star Trek V never explicitly says that Sarek ever married the princess, only that she was Sybok's mother. *A painting of Ambassador Sarek was hung in the 's dining room in The Undiscovered Country. Apocrypha *In the Thirteenth UK Story Arc, Spock had a cousin named Horek. This implies that Sarek had a sibling, one of Horek's parents. *In the comic story "Perchance to Dream," the crew of the was attacked by a telepathic weapon called the Chova, which forced its victims to experience dreams and hallucinations focused on their personal failures. However, it was discovered that people with multiple personalities could render the Chova inert (since the Chova could only attack one personality at a time). Picard was deliberately infected with the Chova, since his mind-meld with Sarek, the probe that gave him the memories of Kamin, and the remnants of his memories as Locutus of Borg still in his mind all gave him the makings of a multiple personality disorder. The four defeated the Chova, but Locutus then attempted to regain control of Picard's body, nearly 'killing' Kamin and Sarek before Picard gathered the mental strength to stop Locutus. *In the novel Engines of Destiny, Sarek became the leader of a resistance fighting the Borg in an alternate timeline where the Borg conquered the Alpha Quadrant during the events of . However, Sarek retained some memories of the original timeline, which allowed him to recognize Kirk and Scotty when they arrived in 'his' timeline; even having never met them, he knew that he could trust the two of them. In the end, Sarek sacrificed himself to buy time for the temporally-relocated Enterprise-D to return Kirk to the Nexus, as Kirk's presence is required for Picard to survive in order to defeat the Borg's time-traveling experiment. *In the Myriad Universes short story A Less Perfect Union, in which Terra Prime was successful and the Federation-like Interstellar Coalition was formed without an isolationist Earth, Sarek was kidnapped by the Romulans before a conference discussing Earth joining the Coalition, and replaced by Keras (the Lenard's Romulan character from ) – who, being so similar in appearance that this required no cosmetic alterations of any kind, concludes that the two likely shared a common ancestor from before the Vulcan-Romulan schism. 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